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July 09, 2016

I've had this album on heavy rotation lately, and it's too divine not to share.

But first, a preamble: I was introduced to Jorge Ben's music by a work colleague during my trip to Brazil two years ago. He's considered a national treasure there (often referred to "BenJor" or by his later name modification, Jorge Ben Jor), and is beloved for his fusion of bossa nova, samba, and rock. I confess that while I liked the early samba album of his that I procured there, it's not something I found myself playing too often once I was back home for whatever reason.

Fast forward to my recent discovery of his 1970s work, in particular this 1974 album, A Tábua De Esmeralda. For you non-Portuguese speakers out there, the title translates to "The Emerald Tablet," and the music therein is chock full of references to alchemy, Nicolas Flamel, Paracelsus, and the one and only Hermes Trismegistus himself. In fact, one of the last tracks, "Hermes Trismegisto e sua celeste tábua de esmeralda" has the words of the Emerald Tablet as its lyrics set to groovy song.

Sonically, it's an eclectic, joyful album, with beautiful arrangements and irresistible rhythms. It sounds like summer. But the esoteric content has boosted this into my firmament of All-Time Favorite Things.

June 12, 2015

True confession: it's rare that I connect with music in the ambient/synth sphere, as too often I'm left a bit bored by its repetition or chilled by its mechanics. But when I do fall for some, I fall hard, and it feels like it syncs up perfectly with the thrum of my own bloodstream. Such is the case with Lykanthea's EP, Migration. Melodic and trance-inducing, it has enough texture and sonic shimmer to keep me fully engaged. In fact, I haven't been able to stop listening to it for the last two days. I admit I also love the album's conceit, as it follows the story of the goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld, and draws heavily from Diane Wolkstein's groundbreaking work on that myth.

You can download all of Lykanthea's tracks here, and view her transporting videos here.

June 03, 2015

The word "diaphanous" was invented to describe Johanna Warren's music it seems. Her sweet soprano vocals lilt and loop between acoustic guitar finger picking that's fine as filigree. But there is a rootedness to her songs as well, steeped in pagan imagery and examining the wide swath of human experience from death to love to attending really awkward parties. I imagine this comparison gets tiresome, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say she reminded me of Clouds-era Joni Mitchell due to their darkly swirling melodies and mythopoeic subject matter.

Warren has a new album out called nūmūn, and it's perfect for woodland wanderings, summer storms, or midnight crystal scrying. As she puts it:

This album is dedicated to The Moon: by honoring her phases, I am restoring balance to my body and spirit; and to the divine feminine: by collectively cultivating her, may we restore balance to our world.

So shall it be.

She's also released a beautiful (and slightly NSFW) video for the track "True Colors," which shows her sky-clad and engaging in initiatory ritual, and art directed by none other than NYC magician Damon Stang.

nūmūn can be streamed over at Bandcamp, you can order hard-copies of the album as well as a hand-bound and hand-printed lyric book there as well. Lovely stuff.

Broadcast will have their long out of print LPs made available again through Warp Records. ‘Work And Non Work’, ‘The Noise Made By People’, ‘HaHa Sound’, ‘Tender Buttons’,‘The Future Crayon’ and ‘Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age’ will be released on March 9th 2015.

A free 8 page 10” x 10” Broadcast booklet, featuring album artwork, will be available for initial orders through Bleep and other independent records shops.

January 23, 2015

Bjork is set to have an epic year. Her new album, Vulnicura, was released digitally a few days ago (two months early to get ahead of leaks), and it's a stunner. A sonic document of heartbreak, it shreds, in the cosmic sense: it aches, it keens, it cuts me to shimmering ribbons. The hard copy will be released in March, and this is one instance where I'm sure I'll rebuy it then, as so much of what makes her an exceptional artist are her visuals.

Fitting then that she's also being given a retrospective at MoMA in the spring. I'm over the moon about this, and can't wait to walk amongst her costumes, album art, videos, et al.:

Björk

March 8–June 7, 2015

The Museum of Modern Art presents a retrospective of the multifaceted work of composer, musician, and artist Björk. The exhibition draws from more than 20 years of the artist’s daring and adventurous projects and her seven full-length albums—from Debut (1993) to Biophilia (2011)—to chronicle her career through sound, film, visuals, instruments, objects, costumes, and performance. The installation will present a narrative, both biographical and imaginatively fictitious, cowritten by Björk and the acclaimed Icelandic writer Sjón. Björk’s collaborations with video directors, photographers, fashion designers, and artists will be featured, and the exhibition culminates with a newly commissioned, immersive music and film experience conceived and realized with director Andrew Thomas Huang and 3-D design leader Autodesk.

Organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator at Large, The Museum of Modern Art, and Director, MoMA PS1.

This exhibition will also see the release of an accompanying book called Bjork: Archives, which sounds like an incredible artifact unto itself:

Bjork is a contemporary icon whose contributions to music, video, film, fashion and art have influenced a generation worldwide. Here, now, is the ultimate celebration of this multimillion-selling superstar. Designed by top design studio M/M (Paris) as a slipcased world of wonders, this publication which accompanies springs exhibition on Bjork at The Museum of Modern Art is composed of six parts: four booklets, a paperback and a poster. Each booklet contains illustrated texts by, respectively, Klaus Biesenbach, Alex Ross, Nicola Dibben and Timothy Morton, while the poster features artwork of Bjorks albums and singles. The main book focuses on her seven major albums Debut, Post, Homogenic, Vespertine, Medulla, Volta and Biophilia and the personas created for each one. Poetic texts by longtime collaborator, Icelandic author Sjón, are accompanied by shots of Bjork performing live; multiple stills from music videos made by directors including Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze; images of Bjork in breathtaking costumes by designers such as Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan; and shots by star photographers such as Nan Goldin, Juergen Teller, Stephane Sednaoui, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, and Araki. All combine to form an extraordinary visual masterpiece, celebrating the magical world of Bjork.

As the author of the first systematic aesthetics of Noise and the alleged creator of the first mechanical sound synthesizer, Luigi Russolo (1885-1947), Italian Futurist painter, composer, and builder of musical instruments is a crucial figure in the evolution of 20th century music and has influenced artists such as John Cage and David Byrne. In this evening’s lecture, Luciano Chessa will unveil the occult plan of Luigi Russolo’s seminal Art of Noises (L’arte dei Rumori, 1913) which became one of the most important and influential texts in 20th century musical aesthetics. Russolo’s ideas and their practical manifestation — the intonarumori — were for him and his associates elements of a multi-leveled experiment to reach higher states of spiritual consciousness. Russolo’s theories reflected his interest in synesthesia, metaphysics, and alchemy and he readily identified Thought-Forms (1901), an influential Theosophical text by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, as a guiding source for his innovations. We will explore Russolo’s belief that an artist-initiate can invoke spirits fluctuating in the astral plane, communicate with the dead, and harness their energy for the spiritualizing process.

Luciano Chessa is a composer, conductor, pianist, and musical saw/Vietnamese dan bau soloist who has been active in Europe, the U.S., Australia, and South America. Chessa is the author of Luigi Russolo, Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult, the first monograph ever to be dedicated to the Futurist Russolo and his Art of Noise (University of California Press). In 2014, Chessa will be participating in the Guggenheim’s retrospective exhibit on Italian Futurism. Chessa holds a D.M.A. in Piano performance and a M.A. in Composition from the G.B. Martini Conservatory of Music in Bologna, Italy, a M.A. magna cum laude in History of Medieval Music from the University of Bologna, and a Ph.D. in Musicology and Music Criticism from the University of California at Davis. Chessa taught, lectured, and talked at various institutions including St. John’s College of Oxford, UK, Columbia University, Harvard University, Sydney’s and Melbourne’s Conservatories and Universities, the Conservatory of Music in Bologna, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and EMPAC in the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Luciano Chessa teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, serves in the Advisory Board of TACET, the international research publication dedicated to Experimental Music from the Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, is a member of the Steering Committee of the SF Electronic Music Festival, and collaborates with SF’s Italian Cultural Institute. His music is published by Edizioni Carrara and by RAI TRADE, the Italian National Broadcast Channels’ music publishing company.

September 17, 2013

If you've been loving the new Goldfrapp album
as much as I have, then you should be as excited as I am that Alison Goldfrapp has been tapped to curate an art show at The Lowry in Manchester. Entitled "Performer as Curator," the exhibition will bring together several of Goldfrapp's favorite visual influences, which inevitably lean into the darker side of fairytales. Artists featured include Phantasmaphile favorites like Leonora Carrington, Henry Darger, and Lotte Reiniger:

Alison Goldfrapp "Performer as Curator"

Sat 19 October - Sun 2 March | #GoldfrappCurator

The Lowry is proud to present the first exhibition within our new
Performer as Curator series, which sees art works selected from
collections around the world by musician Alison Goldfrapp. Her
exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore some of the singer’s
personal inspirations through the painters, film makers, illustrators
and photographers who have shaped her own inimitable artistic vision.

This diverse and high profile selection of works will
portray the artist’s fascination in the darker side of fairy tales and
folklore through traditional and contemporary artworks by
internationally renowned artists. Goldfrapp, who graduated from art
school while writing and performing music, also art directs all things
visual for the band. The exhibition explores the themes of
transformation, metamorphosis and identity that often recur within
traditional fairy tales and that have been represented within works of
art for centuries.

Alison Goldfrapp has enjoyed international acclaim
following a string of worldwide hits, including Strict Machine, Ooh La
La, Lovely Head and Utopia in a career spanning 14 years. Goldfrapp’s
most recent album, Tales of Us, is released on 9 September.

In addition to her critical and commercial success,
Goldfrapp’s reputation for spell-binding live performance and original
costume designs – coupled with her unwillingness to allow public
intrusion into her private life - have cemented her reputation as one of
pop music’s most intriguing stars, and this unique exhibition is as
distinctive and fascinating as the performer herself.

The exhibition includes over 20 artists from national and international collections including:

September 12, 2013

It's been a while since I've done a proper music roundup: a full year in fact! But this fall has so many dark and dreamy new releases that I simply can't resist sharing:

Goldfrapp's Tales Of Us was well worth the wait. Cinematic and string-laden, each track is a different story about characters that feel fairytale-ish and noir at once. The sonics are reminscent of her glittery debut, Felt Mountain. Ms. Goldfrapp has exquisite taste not only in music, but in fashion and fine art as well, so I'm delighted to see she'll be curating a heavenly sounding art show at The Lowry in October. More on that soon.

Oh, Anna Calvi of the bullfighter garb and the Chrissie-Hynde-sings-an-aria voice. Anna Calvi of the cavernous, reverb guitar wall of magic. Anna Calvi of the blood red lip and thundering song. I worship you, and I'm counting the days until October 8th when your new album, One Breath, releases. Thank goodness your video for Eliza exists to tide me over in the meantime.

New Mazzy Star album. New Mazzy Star album. NEW MAZZY STAR ALBUM. What else is there to say? Seasons Of Your Day drops on September 24th. *GASP*

Happily, doomily, Chelsea Wolfe's new album, Pain Is Beauty, is out now. More electro than her preceding ones, her sweetshadow voice and snaky melodies are still ever-present. I have to confess, this music is so heavy that I'm still picking my way through it track by track, having not yet found the fortitude to listen to it whole. But I like it that way. Feels like spelunking.

I discovered Emily Jane White when I was at Aquarius Records in SF last summer, and she's become one of my favorite new finds. Her last album, Ode to Sentience, has a melancholic, pastoral vibe that slays me. Not sure what Blood/Lines will sound like, but I look forward to finding out in November. (And h/t to Sarah Elizabeth for letting me know about it!)

I've been listening to Janelle Monae's new album, The Electric Lady, pretty much constantly since it came out this week, and it is bringing me total joy. Soulful with sci-fi seasoning, it's empowering and imaginative and psychedelic, and it makes me dance in my seat. This clip of her performing on Letterman made my whole day. She is IT.

August 27, 2013

I'm a big fan of Delphic Oracle, Christiana Key's occultic music project. After sharpening her skills in the classical and punk scenes, and then as a touring member of Zola Jesus, she's about to drop her own EP, "Watching the Fern," on September 4th. She'll be celebrating the release that evening via a performance party at Home Sweet Home. The EP will be released as both a download, as well as a USB pendant designed by Naked Label. On
it will be six original songs and a collection of remixes of the
acapella closing song, "Death Dreams," by artists from Coil, Light Asylum,
and MGMT, amongst others.

November 30, 2012

Christine Ödlund is an artist of many talents. I was first introduced to her via her remarkable illustrations for Edda's rerelease of the 1871 Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton sci-fi occult romance novel, Vril: The Power of the Coming Race. The drawings remind me a bit of Fantastic Planet, with their delicacy and pastel palette. Her body of fine art focuses on themes such as plant spirits, bio-chemistry, theosophical thought-forms, and sound vibrations. In addition to her beautiful watercolors like the one above (and do click on it to see its exquisite detail), she creates video installations and musical performances.

Lucky NYCers up for some sponteneity can catch one such film by her this evening at 8pm, as part of the Swedish Energies festival of experimental art:

SWEDISH ENERGIES

Fri, November 30, 2012 - 8:00pm

Clemente Soto Velez, 107 Suffolk Street, NYC

The
second annual Swedish Energies, presented by ISSUE Project Room, iDEAL,
EMS, and the Consulate General of Sweden NYC, is a free two-night
festival featuring a huge lineup of some of Sweden’s most exciting
experimental musicians and artists. Performances include collaborations
between U.S. and Swedish artists, as well as a cross-section of Sweden's
most pre-eminent experimental groups.

Sound- and visual artist Christine Ödlund is freely
and comfortably travelling between different artistic expressions.
Inspired by psychic Annie Besant’s thought forms, nature, ecological
chemistry, the occult, the idea of parallell universes, extreme weather -
Christine Ödlund is working with music composition, painting, drawing,
video, intallations. Experiencing her stuff is like finding yourself in a
mysterious, dreamlike state of mind. Her art is a place where things
are allowed to collide and meet. New energies are born.

For some added trivia, she is married to one of my very favorite painters and Edda co-founder, Fredrik Söderberg. Talk about a power couple.

November 13, 2012

Speaking of tarot, I'm currently lusting after The Wild Unknown Tarot Deck. It was made by Kim Krans, an artist whose sensitively rendered images of nature manage to feel stylish and sincere at once. I can picture using these cards on a candle-lit blanket in the middle of a forest grove.

Krans also happens to be one-half of Family Band, alongside Jonny Ollsin. Their dreamy album Grace & Lies has become one of my very favorites of 2012, thanks to Jay Babcock over at Arthur. And their video for Moonbeams slays me. Skeletons in love!

August 28, 2012

Well, it's nearly my favorite time of year, and I imagine many of you share that sentiment. Besides the changing of the season into one full of smoke and loam and leaf, it also heralds the release a new crop of albums that are a bit darker around the edges. Here are a few I'm most excited about:

Chelsea Wolfe is the new queen of the underworld, thanks to her reverb-heavy dirges and melancholy lyrics. Her music occasionally flirts with folk, albeit with the batting of black as pitch, mascara-laden lashes. Unknown Rooms: a Collection of Acoustic Songs
is a self-explanatory enough title, and will feature what is in my opinion, Ms. Wolfe at her best: unvarnished and singing like a sad siren over guitar strings and frayed heartstrings alike.

The xx is one of those rare bands that crossed over into mainstream while still feeling like a secret. The juxtaposition of spare guitar riffs, skeletal beats, and softly dueling male and female vocals make for songs that are intimate and gut-punching. These are songs that kiss you slowly but leave you breathless. The tracks I've heard from their new album, Coexist, sound not too different from their first album, xx, but that is perfectly fine by me.

I've loved Tori Amos since I was in the 6th grade and Little Earthquakes
tore a new portal open in my pre-adolescent brain, allowing a world of myth and lust and candor to flood forth in a tsunami of piano notes. Gold Dust
is a revisitation of some of Tori's back catalog, but enhanced with new, lush arrangements and full orchestral accompaniment, courtesy of the Metropole Orchestra.

Bat for Lashes' new album, The Haunted Man, shows Natasha Khan forgoing her sparklegoth persona for one a bit more sleek and a lot more adult. The first single, "Laura," is very pared down and sad, so I'll be curious to hear if this stark element will be consistent in all of the new songs.

We're big Dylan fans in our household, and always look forward to new work by him, whether in sonic or literary format. I've been digging his gravely, organ-soaked tunes of late, and if the cover art of Tempest
is any suggestion, we're in for some more noir.

August 05, 2012

There's a nice little interview with Sun City Girls' Sir Richard Bishop over at The Quietus which is a good read. Most exciting is that it introduced me to this short cut-up film, God Damn Religion, which he created out of his vast collection of mystic iconography and travel footage (and a bit of borrowed footage from one of my favorite witchy films, Haxan) - and of course with his own music as the soundtrack. It's a phantasmagoric fever dream, full to bursting with rhythmically flashing pictures of sex, death, ritual, and the gods of many worlds. Totally mesmeric, and well worth your 32 minutes.

March 14, 2012

It's been a while since I've done a music update, so here's what I'm excited about these days:

First and foremost, there's a new Dr. John album called Locked Down being released on April 3rd. Long-term Phantasmaphiles know that Gris-Gris is one of my all-time favorite artworks, musical or otherwise, so I'm psyched to hear this album will harken back to that early, voodoo-soaked era. It's produced by the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, and the first single, "Revolution" is a raucous, brassy anthem that sets me shaking. NYCers should grab tickets to his residency next month at BAM, which sounds incredible. (And thanks to John Coulthart, for the heads up).

Larkin Grimm came out with her latest album, Soul Retrieval, last month. New music by her is always cause for celebration, and this album is a bit more upbeat than some of her previous. But it still has her signature mountain-shaman vibe, with eclectic, psyche-folk instrumentation and ecstatic lyrics. I save for Larkin Grimm my highest compliment: her work makes me happy to be alive.

Anna Calvi has been kicking around the UK for a while, but she's a brand new revelation to me. Her music is lush, noir-rock - a bit like early PJ Harvey with Chrissie Hynde vocals, but even more cavernous and cinematic. I'm a sucker for her androgenous, glamorous flamenco-greaser style, and confess I've been pretty obsessed with finding clips and videos of her on YouTube. She's astonishing.

I love new spins on classic myths (and you may recall my glee about Anais Mitchell's Hadestown, a folk opera version of the Orpheus and Eurydice story.) I recently stumbled upon Sarah Kirkland Snider's orchestral, contemporary take on The Odyssey, called Penelope. Like a musical version of Atwood's Penelopiad, the story is retold from Penelope's perspective, with the added bonus of being performed by Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Lovely stuff.

December 08, 2010

I feel so fortunate to have discovered Anaïs Mitchell's incredible album, Hadestown. It's a folk opera interpretation of the Orpheus myth with a distinctive Dust Bowl Americana vibe. The "cast" is incredible, with Ms. Mitchell as Eurydice, Greg Brown as Hades, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon as Orpheus, Ani DiFranco as Persephone, the Haden Triplets as the Three Fates, and the Low Anthem's Ben Knox Miller as Hermes. Round it all off with incredible music that spans the range from blues to ragtime to old world folk, and you've got a truly epic tour de force. The stunning woodcut album art by Peter Nevins is the ocular cherry on top. I'd give anything to see this performed live - and with Nevins doing the sets, as an added bonus. BAM, are you listening? In the meantime, whether you're myth addict or a music maven, pick yourself up a copy - you'll be so happy you did.

September 01, 2010

I have been waiting for this news for years - YEARS I tell you! Fantasia & Fantasia 2000 are finally being released on Blu-ray, on November 30th! It's a 4-disc set, chock full of treats, including the miraculous Dali/Disney collaboration, Destino - one of the most beautiful and strange animated shorts ever made. Here's the full list of contents:

This 4-disc collection includes the movies and extras on two Blu-Ray discs, along with two DVDs with the movies and limited extras. Contents for each disc are as follows:

May 27, 2010

Cellorock deities Rasputina are back! New album Sister Kinderhook
is out on June 15th, and online samples lead me to believe this is going to be yet another glorious, heady dose of quasi-historic-fabulism spiked with alternatively shredding and sparkling strings. Can. Not. Wait.

January 27, 2010

I cannot, will not, stop talking about how amazing the new Beach House album, Teen Dream, is. Beach House has become hands down my favorite new band of the last couple years, thanks to their lush, shimmering sound and Victoria Legrand's husky, aching vocals. Their previous album, Devotion, has become one of my top 10 most personally important albums of all time, and their first self-titled album
is lovely as well, albeit in a far more lo-fi way.

Listening to a new album from a beloved band is always a tenuous experience. It's a mix of giddy anticipation and self-protective anxiety. There is fear that one will be left cold, that the magic won't be there the way it had been previously. But 4 seconds after hitting play, I knew that Teen Dream was every bit as special as I hoped it would be.

Yes, the album feels a bit more produced than the first two, as tends to happen the bigger a band gets. But in Beach House's case, the higher production value is an asset. The album swells with romance and cavernous pining, and at times is even a bit more upbeat than one might expect. I would never use the word "pop," to describe it (the signature croon of the organ and tambourine punctuations keep things cast in delicious shadow), but I will say there are extremely melodic, catchy elements to it that keep it accessible, while still having the reverby emotional depth one has come to expect and adore.

You know the feeling of being at the school dance, sitting on the sidelines longing so deeply for that certain someone? Well Teen Dream is the sound of dancing with that person, of clutching them with your heart and and drowning in a wall of dark sonorous sparkle. Melodramatic, perhaps - but in the best way possible.

There will be a very special Rasputina recital on September 13, 2009
during the opening week of the new Knitting Factory club at 361
Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn. This will be the ONLY Rasputina
recital from now until Spring 2010.
For this special event we have decided to have an all-request
recital...Melora may also deign to play
some new songs from the upcoming Rasputina album Sister Kinderhook.

It looks like the deadline to email them requests has passed, but for what it's worth, I hope they play: "Rusty the Skatemaker," "Things I'm Gonna Do," "Watch TV," "State Fair," "Mama Was an Opium Smoker," "Green Finch/Johanna," and/or "We Stay Behind" - to name but a few of my favorites.

August 05, 2009

I bought my ticket to Musicka Mystica Maxima, and could not be more excited. What is Musicka Mystica Maxima you ask? Why I'll tell you! It is a 2 night music festival taking place on September 21st and 22nd here in NYC at Santos Party House, which will feature music and ceremonies of the magical-with-a-k variety. Or, as per their site: "Two nights of musick made by
practicing magicians or practicing musicians whose work celebrates the magical
lifestyle, as well a public performance of ceremonial magic ritual."

Each night starts at 7pm. Tickets are $15 per night, or $27 for both nights. Here are some helpful links for you. Order Night One tickets here. Order Night Two tickets here. Order 2-Night Pass tickets here. And do let me know if you're going so we can rendez-vous.

May 22, 2009

Rasputina's mastermind, Melora Creager, just released a beautiful limited edition 3-song EP called the Willow Tree Triptych. Each track is a cellofied folk song from a different country - America, England, and Ireland, respectively - and all titled "The Willow Tree." The songs are beyond lovely, and Melora's voice has never sounded better. But I would consider this minature album to be as much a collectible work of art as anything else. Each CD is individually packaged with a one-of-a-kind, autographed collage done by Melora and her daughter Hollis. As such it is a keepsake to be treasured and enjoyed for centuries to come! Do order yourself one, as only 100 have been made, and they are going fast.

April 03, 2009

A new Tori Amos album is always cause for celebration. Mark your calendars for May 19th, when Abnormally Attracted to Sin will be released. There will also be a deluxe edition
that has videos - called "visualettes" - for each and every track. YUM.